34
Sitting at her laptop with the intention of checking her email, Madeleine was trying her utmost to avoid being distracted by the latest barrage of hateful comments and messages on her social media page:
If that little girl dies—it’s all your fault. How stupid can people be! Vaccinate your damn kids!
You nut job! What kind of conspiracy theorist wacko are you?
I wish your kids could be taken from you. Jesus, you have some nerve going on TV and acting like some kind of parenting expert. FRAUD! I hope you lose your shirt in COURT! And lose some weight too, fat-ass.
Stay strong, Madeleine! A parent knows what’s right for their children and what isn’t. Don’t let the haters get you down!
I completely agree with you and your husband, Madeleine. No parent should be forced by the government, doctors or anyone else to poison their children with chemicals. That other little girl getting sick isn’t your fault. Justice will prevail.
I love your blog, Madeleine. When will you write again? After the week I’ve had I need a laugh. Also, can you let me know where you got that nice shirtdress you were wearing on Morning Coffee the last time you were on? Was it Kate Spade? I love her stuff too.
Worried that she might break down and cry, she switched quickly to her email program, hoping for better news.
But what she saw there made her feel even worse.
Dear Madeleine,
I hope you are very well. I wanted to let you know that due to unforeseen circumstances, namely the recent media controversy surrounding your blog, we feel it might be best to postpone publication of the Mad Mum collection for the moment. I’m sure you agree that the current atmosphere is not ideal for propelling the book to the sales heights it deserves. We will of course be happy to reexamine the situation at a later date, perhaps when your legal situation is resolved?
With all good wishes,
Joanne O’Rourke,
Senior Publisher, Little Blue Books
Exhaling heavily, Madeleine closed her laptop. When would all of this stop? The endless barrage of criticism and outrage about her and Tom’s decision-making, their parenting choices and now, ominously, she noted among the latest batch of hate mail, her appearance?
She did not consider herself a vain woman but surely there wasn’t a person alive who enjoyed being referred to as “fat-ass.”
Regardless of being called fat, the disappointing—but not unexpected—news about her publishing deal going south was a much bigger dent to her professional ego.
But from a business perspective, of course it was a no-brainer for the book to be put on ice, and also no major surprise, given the huge reversal of public, and indeed commercial, support for Mad Mum since news of the lawsuit broke. Since then, all but two of her online advertisers had pulled the plug and she guessed it was only a matter of time before the others did as soon as their current contracts expired.
All the hard work and effort she’d put into building her brand and turning it into a successful business was now rapidly going down the toilet.
And all because people didn’t agree with her stance on a controversial topic.
The way people—her own neighbors, even—were talking, you’d think Madeleine had actually gone around to Kate O’Hara’s house and physically injected Rosie with the measles virus.
It was all such a huge disaster and Madeleine had no idea how to get out of it. And of course in reality this was just the beginning. What would it be like when they actually got to court?
She stood up and absentmindedly checked her appearance in preparation for a quick coffee with Lucy before they went to pick up the kids from school. But she didn’t need a stranger on the internet to tell her she looked like shit. Her hair fell limply around her face and her roots badly needed doing, but she was too afraid to go near her own hairdresser’s or any salon these days, what with all the tongue-wagging and finger-pointing from every quarter. And worse, Madeleine no longer knew who—if indeed anyone—was on her side.
Except Lucy, of course. A chat with her good friend was a long-overdue and much-needed diversion. She was brilliant for putting things in perspective, and ever since the story first broke had been at the ready on the other end of the phone with a kind word and a cheery story or two to help Madeleine keep her mind off it all and raise her spirits when some of the online stuff got too nasty.
And while Tom was still unhappy with Lucy for the part she’d played in unwittingly giving Kate O’Hara the ammunition she needed to claim negligence, Madeleine knew that her friend hadn’t meant for any of this to happen and would never in a million years do anything to let her down.
But when she reached Molly’s Café in the center of Knockroe and took one look at Lucy’s face as her friend waited nursing a latte at their usual table, she immediately knew something was wrong. And worse, she wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“What’s going on?” Madeleine asked, wondering what fresh hell the universe was about to unleash on her now.
Lucy wrapped her hands around the cup in front of her. “I wanted to tell you in person and...I might as well just come right out and say it, but, Maddie, I’ve agreed to testify. On Kate’s side.”
Madeleine felt all the air leave her lungs. “What? But why? Why would you do that, Luce? You know that I didn’t mean any harm that morning, and you agreed with me that it wasn’t right for Kate to be doing this. Why, then, would you turn around and stab me in the back?”
“That’s not it. Please understand, Madeleine, it’s nothing personal—”
“But of course it is! You, my friend—possibly the only remaining friend I have left—are going to stand up in court and tell people that I purposely sent Clara to school knowing she was ill. We already know that it doesn’t seem to matter whether I meant any malice or not; the very idea that I knew she was sick seems reason enough to make me a monster. Why, then, would you add fuel to the fire?”
There were tears in Lucy’s eyes now. “I don’t have a choice, sweetheart. I saw Rosie yesterday and it almost broke my heart. She’s not...good.”
Madeleine collapsed into the seat across from her, stunned. She honestly didn’t think things could get any worse and suddenly they had and then some. “How bad is it? Is she still in the hospital? Will she ever be OK again?”
“She’s due to start rehab soon and they’re not yet sure when she’ll be ready to go home. But it’ll be a long road for her, that much is for sure.” Lucy sniffed. Then she reached for Madeleine’s hand across the table. “Look, for what it’s worth, I know Kate was in two minds all along about proceeding with the case. But now, with this, I realize she doesn’t have a choice. And she needs me.”
“Needs you to prove that I’m at fault. That I caused all this.” Madeleine’s brain swam with the horror of it all. To think that she could be held responsible for causing serious brain damage to a little girl. It didn’t matter that it was indirect or otherwise. This was the reality. Kate O’Hara’s reality was of course a million times worse, but that didn’t stop Madeleine from feeling nauseous about it, all the same.
“I was wondering...” Lucy began then and, at the tone of her voice, Madeleine turned her attention back to her friend, who sounded like she had something else on her mind. “I was wondering if...well, this is hard to say and please don’t take it the wrong way, but is there any possibility at all of you and Tom maybe agreeing to settle all this? Before it gets to court, I mean.”
Madeleine thought of her husband and how angry all of this had made him. How he’d vowed to protect his rights, would fight to the death to defend their family’s choices. There was no way Tom would back down from any of this.
Of course, Madeleine would do so in a heartbeat, especially with what had happened to Rosie in the aftermath, but Tom? No way.
By now, it had well and truly become personal. He’d been apoplectic from day one at the very idea of Kate using their anti-vaccination stance to accuse Clara of infecting Rosie, and since the public began to pile on, too, and on Madeleine personally, his outrage seemed to grow more with each passing day. For Tom, it was a direct attack on not just their personal liberty but their family, and her husband would defend both to the ends of the earth.
She could ask again but...
“I seriously doubt it, Lucy,” she told her friend despondently. “Tom’s already so furious with Kate and with the media for piling on over the vaccination thing. As far as he’s concerned, we haven’t broken any laws and have no case to answer.”
Though Madeleine wondered, now given that Lucy had agreed to provide Kate with the necessary testimony to support her supposed negligence, did those words still hold true?